Menus

Your Site's Menu

Menus are one of the main tools that make up your site’s navigation. They show visitors what’s available and help them move around easily.

Each site has a main menu or a list of pages that gives visitors a quick overview of your content. A good menu helps people understand your site at a glance and reach the topics they care about most.

Many editors worry about “burying” pages too deep in the menu, but that’s not always a bad thing. What matters most is that your structure makes sense. Visitors expect broad topics near the top and more specific information within those sections.

How Menus Work

Your menu shows the main sections of your site and how your pages fit within them:

Main menu items: The top-level categories of your site (examples: Home, About, Programs, Events, Resources). These are always visible in the menu.
Subpages: Pages that live under a main menu item. Subpages can appear in the menu as submenu items in a dropdown beneath their parent page (for example, “Mission & Vision” under “About”).

Think of your site like a well-organized store. Store items (your subpages) are grouped into aisles by category (your main menu items). People expect to browse by category, not see every product at once. Organizing your menu this way helps visitors find what they’re looking for without feeling lost.

Example: How It Looks vs. How It’s Structured

Important: Don’t Use Submenu Items as Links

When you create a subpage, you can choose for it to appear in the menu.

Drupal does include a feature called Remote Content that can turn a menu item into a link (like a button that points to an internal or external site or resource). Do not use this feature except in extremely limited cases. If you believe you have a qualifying case, contact IT before using it.

Menu items are not for:

Linking to external websites
Linking directly to PDFs, Word files, or other documents

Your menu should reflect real subpages within your site.

If you need to point visitors to external resources or documents, add the links in the body of your page where they have context. This keeps your main menu clean, predictable, and easy to use.

Do’s and Don’ts of Navigation

Do:

Keep your main menu to 5–7 items
Make sure every menu item links to real, useful content
Keep main menu labels short and clear (e.g., “Events” instead of “Calendar of All Upcoming Events”)
Put the most important main menu items first (Home, About, Programs)
Use title case for labels (e.g., “Explore Our Programs”)

Don’t:

Don’t overload your main menu with too many items
Don’t create blank “holder” pages that have no content
Don’t use vague labels like “Miscellaneous” or “More”
Don’t use subpages as links to external sites, PDF files, Word docs. Put those links in the page content instead
Don’t use ALL CAPS, exclamation points (!), or unnecessary punctuation in labels

Want to Learn More?

The W3C Web Accessibility Initiative: Navigation Menus explains why accessible navigation matters and offers practical tips for building menus that work for everyone.